Varieties of food democracy: a systematic literature review

ABSTRACT

The concept of food democracy has been developed to articulate norms and ideals of democracy as a counterpressure to ‘food control’ from concentrated and transnational corporate power in the agri-food system. Yet to date, a comprehensive overview is missing to identify the various elements and dimensions of food democracy conceptualizations and to reflect on what exactly is democratic about food democracy. To address this gap, a systematic literature review was conducted to assess consensus, common and outlying dimensions of food democracy conceptualizations and the epistemological synergies and struggles around different understandings of democracy in the research field. Analysis uncovers more than 20 different food democracy dimensions, the most common of which (deliberation, knowledge democracy, food choice, civic co-planning, rights protection) diverge along two predominant schools of thought, epistemological positions and strategies for change: first, food democracy as a process of open and inclusive public deliberation in participatory settings; second, food democracy as the protection of individual rights, liberties and private (consumer) freedom. Through the lens of varied democracy perspectives, we discuss implications for further development of food democracy in research, policy and agri-food systems interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• Food citizens
• local food
• public participation
• food movements
• democracy traditions

The concept of food democracy was introduced by Tim Lang in the 1990s to refer to ‘the demand for greater access and collective benefit from the food system’ (Lang 1999, 218). Since its origins, it has inspired food initiatives (Carlson and Chappell 2015), grassroots activism (Daye 2020) and political food strategies (Petetin 2020). In academic debates, the food democracy concept has been used as an analytical lens to understand the political dimensions of agri-food systems and movements (De Schutter 2017; Lang 2005; Hamilton 2005), as a normative articulation of democracy in response to various governance challenges, for example COVID-related inequality and food chain fragility (Kaika and Racelis 2021; Simona et al. 2021), complex nutritional demands of growing cities (Dela Cruz, Thornton, and Haase 2020), and potential shortcomings of neighboring concepts such as food sovereignty or food security (Smaal et al. 2021; Resler and Hagolani-Albov 2021). And yet, despite being part of the rich research tradition investigating food as a locus for democratic transformation in society (Goodman 2014; Dahlberg 2001; McKeon 2015), comprehensive reviews to identify the various dimensions and elements of food democracy and to reflect on what exactly is democratic about food democracy are missing. Drawing on a multi-dimensional framework from democracy theory, this systematic literature review aims to map distinct food democracy conceptualizations and their relation to different understandings of democracy with implications for research, policy and practice.

Democracy theorists have long emphasized the importance of distinguishing between different types, traditions or models of democracy (Held 1996; Lijphart 1999). While there is no ‘magic formula’ for a healthy democracy, institutional arrangements are a result of political choices and strategies to advance certain ideals over others (Altman 2010, 4). To make sense of the extensive line of democratic options including methods and values which can be applied when forming governance arrangements (Hendriks 2019), multi-dimensional democracy frameworks have become important analytical tools to disaggregate democracy understandings and evaluate empirical democratic progress (Coppedge et al. 2011). By applying a multi-dimensional democracy framework in this systematic literature review, we are able to not only identify central food democracy elements, but also delineate synergistic or conflicting understandings of democracy and democratic change in the agri-food realm.

The paper has two aims: first, to contribute to enhanced conceptual clarity around food democracy. The food democracy concept has faced skepticism due to the normative and practical ambiguity of democracy as an underlying motif and paradigm. A particular concern is that democratic rhetoric, if idealized and unquestioned, can obscure the co-optation of food movements and perpetuate undemocratic practices (Guthman 2014; Rossi 2017). Previous research has elaborated food democracy characteristics, goals and empirical applications (Hassanein 2008), and engaged with implicit and explicit democracy theories and models through analysis of public participation, governance interventions and the roles of citizens and institutions in food democracy (Lorenzini 2019; Fink, Schluntz, and Galperin 2018; Bassarab et al. 2019; Thompson, Cochrane, and Hopma 2020). Such analyses have raised urgent issues for further study, for example, whether food democracy is skewed toward private, market-based participation (Sonnino, Marsden, and Moragues-Faus 2016); or if interventions are pigeonholed as niche alternatives in local contexts (López Cifuentes and Gugerell 2021). Contributions to the food democracy debate address very different problematizations and scales, and draw on different traditions of democratic thought. A thorough reconstruction along these dimensions can therefore help to better understand commonalities and dividing lines within the food democracy literature.

The second aim is to identify interrelated and divergent epistemological strands of research and discuss their implications for policy and practice. Conceptualizing food democracy is in itself political in the sense that it reflects normative beliefs and narratives around agri-food systems change which favor certain lines of research, policy interventions and actors. Therefore, the question ‘what is food democracy?’ should be contextualized within a discussion of how it has been conceptualized, influenced and employed in research, and how some perspectives are emphasized and others marginalized or obscured, with connotations beyond academia. Concepts like food democracy are often introduced in research, but they reflect long-standing efforts ‘enacted and embodied’ by various movements, activists and leaders (Lourival and Rose 2022, 7). Different understandings of food democracy become apparent when this term is used to refer to stakeholder workshops of grassroots organizations like the New Jersey Food Democracy Collaborative (NJFDC 2022) on the one hand, as well as the presentation of a new line of plant-based products from a food company expressing their ‘liberal food democracy’ (Lonkila and Kaljonen 2022, 6). By analyzing different food democracy strands in research, this study also improves the understanding of food democracy as theory-in-use in wider democratic discourses and practices for agri-food systems change.

The remainder of this paper proceeds as follows. First, we explain the democracy model framework as adapted for this study and the systematic review methodology. Next, we present the bibliographic analysis, which focuses on origins and citation clusters in food democracy research, and an inductive content search, which identifies agri-food system problematizations and democracy scales addressed in the text corpus. Lastly, we turn to the inductive-deductive analysis of consensus, common and outlying dimensions of food democracy under broader democracy models, and the divergences between food democracy understandings. A discussion of the distinct strategies for change and implications for the further development of the concept closes the argument.

Conceptual framework: models of democracy

In his authoritative treatment of democracy theory, Held (1996, 6) defines a democracy model as ‘a theoretical construction designed to reveal and explain the chief elements of a democratic form and its underlying structure of relations.’ Democracy models are not mutually exclusive, but they help to delineate specific political ideals and their implications for society, for example, preferences for quantity and characteristics of participation that are required in a healthy democracy (Stadelmann-Steffen and Freitag 2010).

As our basis for model classification, this study applies a multi-dimensional comparative framework adapted from Coppedge et al. (2011) and draws from additional references in democracy theory. By using this framework to provide the overarching theoretical categories for analysis of food democracy dimensions, we can disaggregate democracy explanations to reconstruct common strands of research, as well as identify controversies in democracy articulations. The classification is presented in Table 1. It summarizes seven democracy models (deliberative, participatory, direct, cosmopolitan, liberal, egalitarian and majoritarian democracy) with regard to their ideal profile and description, key concepts and indicative references.

Table 1. Summary of democracy model ideal profiles and categories.

Democracy Model	Ideal Profile	Description	Categories: keywords and concepts	References
Deliberative	Government through Discussion	Formally or informally adjudicating values and opinions in a realm of public debate to reach well-reasoned and legitimate decisions.	debate, deliberation, argument, reason, dialog, persuasion, consensus, judgment, discussion, panels, councils, deliberative bodies, public scrutiny, assemblies, hearings, justifications	Habermas 1987; Dryzek 1990; Feindt 2001
Participatory	Government of the People	Citizens take responsibility for activities which affect decision-making and enforce accountability.	civic activity, public work and employment, participatory budgeting, co-management, co-planning	Pateman 1970; Escobar 2017
Direct	No distinction between authority and community	Limited (or no) delegation; citizens have veto power and emit their opinion on issues.	direct control; referenda, recalls; plebiscites; popular initiatives	Altman (2010)
Cosmopolitan	Citizens participate in transnational politics	Emphasizes solidarity among social movements and political reach beyond national borders.	global government, borderless, transnational ruling bodies and authorities (i.e. UNO)	Archibugi and Held 1995
Liberal	Rights and civil liberties protected against oppression	Popular representation of citizens combined with protection of individual rights and civil liberties.	electoral representation, rights, civil liberties, freedoms, constraints of state power, horizontal checks and balances, transparency, open market	Dahl 1989; Dryzek 1990; Held (1996)
Egalitarian	Equality of political power	All citizens are enabled to exercise their right to participate with special attention to power and resource inequalities.	equality, equal power, empowerment, enfranchisement, equal representation, equal protection, positive discrimination	Sigman and Lindberg 2019
Majoritarian	Majority-rule to central authority	Elected representatives act with elite political authority.	consolidated and centralized power, political elite, representative simple majority	Lijphart (1999)

Source: Authors’ compilation based on model descriptions in democracy literature.

Methodology

This systematic review builds on established practice to collect, manually select and analyze a comprehensive research body (Petticrew and Roberts 2008; Candel 2014). First, straightforward Boolean search terms were chosen (‘food democracy’ and/or ‘food democracies’) with the aim to find all scholarly publications on food democracy. To provide a preliminary data set, five academic databases were searched most recently in March 2022: 1) Science Direct 2) Web of Science 3) Scopus 4) Google Scholar and 5) Heine Online. As outlined in Figure 1, the initial results totaled n = 417 publications.

Figure 1. Representation of food democracy literature search and selection.

Source: Authors’ representation.

The manual selection process ensured that all included publications contained relevant content on food democracy research (both theoretical and empirical studies). Sources were screened for three inclusion criteria: 1) contains at least one paragraph on food democracy; 2) English language; 3) peer-reviewed journal publications, conference papers, academic magazine articles, books or edited book chapters.

We removed gray literature and publications where food democracy was named but not elaborated, for example, a mention in a list among other food-related concepts. Six publications in French, Spanish or Portuguese yielded by Google Scholar were not included. A search for backward and forward references yielded four additional results. After duplicates were removed, the final text corpus consisted of 114 publications.

The data analysis, conducted with MAXQDA, followed a mixed-method approach combining both inductive/deductive and quantitative/qualitative strategies to assess each research variable. An initial publication analysis collected bibliographic variables: publication date, authors’ disciplines, and geographical location of the authors’ affiliated institutions. A quantitative citation analysis was conducted to establish research clusters, i.e. groups of publications which share references to certain seminal food democracy works and epistemological origins.

Next, named challenges or problematizations of the agri-food system were coded inductively and the codes were grouped into overarching categories. The resulting problematization codes reflect different degrees of elaboration in the text corpus. Some criticisms merely listed summative challenges such as globalization or industrialization; problems were at times only vaguely alluded to (i.e. ‘mainstream’, ‘dominant’, or ‘conventional’ food, ‘Big Ag’ or ‘Big Food’). When possible, generic terms were supplemented by explanations elsewhere in the text. The content analysis also registered the scales at which food democracy issues were pitched, either conceptually or empirically. For each publication, the main food democracy scale was coded and aggregated based on the most salient locus for food democracy, for example the scale of the case study (city or country) or the explicit mention of a scale.

In order to identify essential food democracy elements and understand these elements in the context of wider democracy theory, we first employed an inductive coding and content analysis to each publication, followed by a deductive content categorization based on the multi-dimensional democracy framework: first, food democracy dimensions (i.e. definitions, descriptions, institutional characteristics, mechanisms, goals, empirical examples) were inductively coded; their frequency was analyzed to establish consensus dimensions (included in all research), common dimensions (20 or more publications) and outlying dimensions (categories with less than 10 publications). Through this inductive coding process, four thematic areas (participation, knowledge, rights realization, role of the state) emerged and guided comparative analysis of food democracy understandings.

Turning to deductive analysis, the multi-dimensional democracy framework was used to subsume food democracy dimensions to overarching democracy models; each publication was categorized to a best corresponding model, or multiple models when an inextricable interaction or overlap occurred (full list in Annex). Model classification was directed by 1) explicit mentions of models in the text (noting any negative or positive perception); 2) occurrence of the distinct categories of the conceptual framework; 3) frequency or centrality of democracy categories to a publication’s food democracy conceptualization. Coding processes and results were repeatedly discussed between coauthors and with peers.

There are certain limitations of this methodological approach as well as issues that were deemed outside the scope of the study. For data collection, search filter variance across databases presented a challenge for producing comparable preliminary results, for example, the lack of subject or topic filters in Google Scholar; this was addressed by pre-screening the first 200 results for academic literature. In addition, Google Scholar might deliver personalized content, compromising replicability. It was therefore only used as a complementary source. The search parameters focused on terms explicitly related to ‘food democracy’ and did not include terms related to other food movement concepts. Additionally, an English language-only search was justified by the need for consistent internationally accessible research and analytical feasibility; the potential bias toward an Anglo-Saxon understanding of food democracy should be noted, although validated publications did include a wide geographical range of empirical examples and author institutions.

Results

The systematic review produced a comprehensive picture of how food democracy has been articulated in different strands of scholarship. We first look at the origins and evolution of the concept.

Research clusters

The term ‘food democracy’ first appeared in the 1992 publication of a lecture by Tim Lang of City University London (Lang 1992). Since then, research interest has grown and diversified over the past decades (30 works in 2019 alone) due to the field entering a revisitation period and the evocation of food democracy in new empirical contexts (i.e. GMO debates, smart cities, COVID-19). The reviewed scholarship was produced by authors in over 30 disciplinary areas and based at institutions in 26 countries.

Within this diverse field, a citation analysis found two main research clusters (Figure 2): first, publications which cite Lang’s institutionalist food democracy works (n = 50), or those of Professor Neva Hassanein, based at University of Montana, USA (n = 69), often in combination (n = 27). Lang introduced food democracy as an antagonist of food control, a system with ‘people, animals, plants and the environment being controlled in order to maintain order, authority and predictability’ (Lang and Heasman 2004, 279). Food democracy, in contrast, was envisioned by Lang as an inclusive, decentralized democratic process to create mutuality and symbiosis for public goods such as ecological and public health (p.279). Based on a participatory case study in a community food hub, Hassanein later developed five influential food democracy criteria: becoming knowledgeable, sharing ideas, developing efficacy, orienting toward the community good, and collaborating toward sustainability (2008, 90). She also introduced a multi-level description according to which ‘food democracy is about citizens – in the broad, denizen sense of the word – determining agro-food policies and practices locally, regionally, nationally, and globally’ (Hassanein 2008, 289).

Figure 2. Frequently referenced food democracy authors and clusters of reference combination.

Number of citations. Source: Authors’ analysis of N = 114 publications.

Another research cluster situated in legal studies is largely insulated around a separate origin – the works of Professor Neil D. Hamilton, former Dean of Drake University Centre for Agricultural Law in Iowa, USA (n = 37). Hamilton conceptualized food democracy in his own research and leadership in the emerging US-American food council movement, noting that ‘our commitment to democracy as a people and as a nation is an enduring feature of America […] That is why I chose the title Food Democracy’ (Hamilton 2004, 23). 80% of the analyzed publications from legal studies reference Hamilton, with n = 9 citing him as the only food democracy reference point (n = 14 including his own works). Only n = 5 publications in our text corpus reference Hamilton and either Lang or Hassanein.

Problematizations of the agri-food system

The inductive content analysis identified 20 distinct problematizations. These were grouped into five overarching categories as summarized in Table 2.

Table 2. Agri-food system problematizations in food democracy literature.

Problematizations	Number of publications
State disengagement	65
Neoliberalism	27
Individualization of responsibility	21
Lack of regulation and oversight	9
Incoherent agriculture & food policy	8
Concentration of corporate control	55
Monopolization of value chains	26
Unequal power	17
Big Ag	12
Industrialization	48
Industrialization (general)	24
Efficiency-oriented agricultural productivism	9
Commodification	8
Technocratization	5
Lack of agri-food knowledge and education	2
Globalization	40
Globalization (general)	14
Citizen disengagement	11
Lack of transparency	9
Global trade and investment	4
Land grabbing by foreign investors	2
Injustice	19
Inequality	10
Injustice (general)	5
Denial of human rights	4

Source: Authors’ analysis of N = 114 publications.

A disengaging state is singled out as a source of governance failure, in particular a weakened capacity or political will to adequately regulate areas such as global trade (Elver 2016), standards of food safety (Trexler 2011) and genetically modified agriculture (Pulle 2012; Friedrich et al. 2019). Corporate engagement in norms and standards, or co-regulation, has raised concerns regarding the legitimacy of decision-making and government accountability (Behringer and Feindt 2019). This leads to, inter alia, perceived political hypocrisy (Galperin 2018), corporate capture (Simona et al. 2021), and skepticism toward government (Bassarab et al. 2019). Several authors critique elements of a neoliberal paradigm, e.g. an emphasis on individual choice and responsibility (McKeon 2015) and resulting strategies for behavioral change or nudging (Gumbert 2019).

Concentration of corporate control is described by Anderson (2008, 597) as a situation in which corporations exercise ‘disproportionate control of the globalized food system and increasingly mandate each step from how crops and live-stock will be raised to how food will be sold.’ Although not a new challenge, expedited concentration through the 1980s and 1990s motivated the conceptualization of food democracy as a counter-concept (Adelle 2019).

Industrialization is viewed as the prioritization of standardized mass production and commodification of crops, often at the expense of public health, social inclusion and environmental concerns (Lang 1992). This process is explicitly tied to an efficiency-oriented productivist agricultural paradigm that often promotes state subsidies to large grain and commodity producers (De Schutter 2014). Industrialization is perceived as undermining the democratic foundations of food systems in that it crowds out small-scale local farmers (Hamilton 2005), leads to technocratic control of knowledge and erodes public food and agricultural literacy (Welsh and MacRae 1998).

Globalization refers to the internationalization of food markets and trade regulation (Gómez-Benito and Lozano 2015). The expanding geographical distances between food, consumers and centers of policy-making are linked to diverse challenges: disenfranchisement and disempowerment of citizens (Moragues-Faus 2016), psychological disconnect between production and consumption (Bedore 2010), lack of ownership of social and environmental externalities (Hassanein 2003), or fear and anxiety surrounding food safety and availability (Petetin 2020).

Injustice: While also being a consequence of other issues, agri-food system injustice is repeatedly invoked as a problematization in itself. Key aspects are the unequal burden of negative consequences on deprived and marginalized populations (Baldy and Kruse 2019) and the compromising or denying of human rights in global and domestic agendas (Riches 1999). Injustice takes a more direct form in racial and socio-economic discriminatory policies and practices which prevent full public participation, food access and personal choice (Eakin et al. 2017), inequalities which were reinforced during the COVID-19 pandemic (Kaika and Racelis 2021).

Scales of food democracy

The analysis found that food democracy is mostly discussed at the local and to a lesser degree at the national level, with further contributions about global and multiple levels (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Democracy scales in food democracy publications.

Source: Authors’ analysis of N = 114 publications.

Local scale: 53% of publications address food democracy mainly at local level, both in local processes and substantive local outcomes. Of these, a quarter focus on cities, where political responsibility has arguably shifted from the national level, and where food has entered urban policy agendas (Brons et al. 2022). Local practices include mutual knowledge exchange (Baldy and Kruse 2019), collaborative problem-solving (Booth and Coveney 2015), improving rights realization, accountability and transparency (Anderson 2008), maintaining community (Levkoe 2006) and strengthening social innovation (Fernandez-Wulff 2019). Buying local is linked to substantive food democracy outcomes including climate mitigation and animal welfare (Atwell 2007).

National scale: 21% of publications address food democracy mainly at the national level, often taking aim at legislative and judicial measures such as the federal Farm Bill or tort disputes (Fink, Schluntz, and Galperin 2018). Galperin (2018, 357) emphasizes that ‘the real action is the clear connection between a very practical thing – food— and the laws that surround it.’ Local or regional efforts such as food policy councils or locavore movements, argues Trexler (2011), are means to send a message to lawmakers. It is at national scale that increased oversight and regulation institutionalize food democracy and create a counterpressure to corporate food control (Lang 1999).

Global scale: 13% of publications focus on transnational issues and institutions (i.e. foreign agricultural trade and investment) where globalized markets, regulations and social-environmental consequences are met by a global vision of democracy (McKeon 2015; Gómez-Benito and Lozano 2015). This is also illustrated in considerations of universal, place-less democracy which explore concepts of injustice and human rights realization (Mapulanga-Hulston 2009).

Multiple scales: 10% of analyzed publications treat food democracy at multiple scales. They argue that the local scale, while essential, is insufficient; the ambitions and goals of local food democracy must arguably be scaled up, for example, to corporate commodity chains (Eakin et al. 2017) or a post-pandemic European CAP (Petetin 2020).

Individual scale: Few publications (3%) addressed the individual scale, which is linked to self-sufficiency and self-determination, e.g. independently creating food tastes (Voß and Guggenheim 2019) or changing agri-food systems directly by growing and providing your own food (Andretta and Guidi 2017).

Dimensions of food democracy

As the outcome of inductive coding, we established a comprehensive list of 21 food democracy dimensions (Table 3). Each dimension is illustrated by empirical examples, a brief description of the food democracy contribution, and the number of mentions across publications. We identified 1) consensus, common and outlying dimensions of food democracy based on their frequency in research, and 2) divisions between different democracy understandings across four thematic areas which emerged: participation, knowledge, rights realization and role of the state. Through deductive analysis, these dimensions were then aligned under the overarching democracy categories.

Table 3. Dimensions of food democracy.

Dimensions/democracy model	Theme	no. of public-ations	Empirical examples	Contribution to food democracy
Deliberative democracy		93
Deliberation	Participation	48	Food policy councils, citizens’ juries, People’s Food Policy	Deliberative public fora to navigate ethical dilemmas and uncertainty
Knowledge democracy	Knowledge	22	Communities of practice, inter-knowledge dialogs	Widening diversity and scope of knowledge representation
State responsiveness	Role of state	14	Government consultation, interactive regulatory processes	Reflexive governance for policy sincerity and accountability
Social interaction	Participation	9	Food policy councils, food co-ops, urban agriculture	Social interaction builds long-term collective agency and trust
Liberal democracy		86
Food choice	Participation	40	Farmers’ markets, food co-ops, Wal-Mart organic produce	Consumption as a site of political action, satisfaction and individual autonomy
Rights protection	Rights realization	20	Right to food access, information and choice	Protection of negative rights fundamental to human dignity and food security
Transparency	Knowledge	17	Food labels and food literacy campaigns	Consumer and citizen awareness support better food choices
Place-based economy	Participation	12	Food policy councils, farm-to-table restaurants	Support for relocalization and decentralization of food economy
Participatory democracy		64
Civic co-planning	Participation	27	Food policy councils, urban living labs	Doing democracy through public work and volunteerism
Active in local food procurement	Participation	14	Civic agriculture, farmers’ markets, food co-ops	Foster solidarity, community problem-solving, and local economy
Knowledge of food systems engagement	Knowledge	6	Food policy councils, urban agriculture	Gaining political skills and knowledge around food issues
Activism	Participation	17	Anti-pesticide and GMO protests, family farm coalitions	Raising awareness to steer consumer, business and regulatory behavior
Egalitarian		28
Right to participate	Rights realization	14	Legal entitlement to decision-making	Citizens have an equal right to participate in food governance
Guaranteed equal opportunities	Participation	14	Inclusivity measures, anti-oppression dialogs	Include and elevate minority voices and subordinated groups
Cosmopolitan		9
Consumers for global goals	Participation	4	Participatory Guarantee Systems, WTO biotech rulings	Critical consumption and consumer input in global trade standards
Global citizenship	Role of state	5	Committee for World Food Security (CFS), urban agriculture movement	Link local participation to global power aiming beyond nation-state
Direct		8
Back to the land	Participation	6	Land-rights campaigns, citizen gardening	Repurposing public and private land and building self-efficacy
Self-realization	Participation	2	Taste experimentation, direct market farming	Non-conformity to social and global eating and growing patterns
Other categories		7
Radical food democracy	Role of state	5	Capital/land redistribution, transformation of paid work	Break down existing power and social-property relations
Prefigurative food democracy	Participation	2	Food co-ops, veganism, squatting	Deep democracy through lifestyle choices

Source: Based on authors’ analysis of N = 114 publications.

Consensus dimensions

Although we did not find a singular consensus dimension across all research, there is some interpretation of strengthened bottom-up public participation in every food democracy publication. Participation serves as an intrinsic value and is a bedrock of a more just, democratic and sustainable food system (Kaljonen, et al., 2021; Resler and Hagolani-Albov 2021; Hassanein 2003). In a basic definition, food democratization could be ‘any change toward more active participation of citizens in the governance of food,’ (Holtkamp and van Mierlo 2022, 2), being achieved when a food system is organized in such a way that people can participate in decision-making (Carlson and Chappell 2015; Johnston, Biro, and MacKendrick 2009). Venues, forms and intensity of participation, however, differ widely.

Common dimensions

The common dimensions discussed below contain three dimensions that address the theme of participation in the food democracy concept, and one dimension each addresses the themes of knowledge and the role of the state. Each of these five common dimensions was found in at least 20 publications in our text corpus: 1) deliberation 2) knowledge democracy 3) civic co-planning 4) food choice and 5) rights protection.

Deliberation (theme: participation). Deliberation is the most frequent food democracy dimension (n = 48), beginning with the role of public reasoning to reject food irradiation noted in the earliest publication (Lang 1992, 31). Legitimacy of a decision or policy is tied to the quality of ‘genuinely open debate between opposing and alternative viewpoints’ (Lang and Heasman 2004, 279). Hassanein (2003, 83) stipulates that deliberation is essential to mediate value conflicts over sustainability and navigate ethical dilemmas around risk and uncertainty; this is the ‘pragmatism’ of food democracy, or rather ‘the willingness to negotiate differences and be satisfied with incremental changes rather than standing firm for inflexible absolutes.’ With the influence of Hassanein’s work, deliberative exchange of ideas became a central criterion in food democracy studies when, for example, examining food policy councils, food hubs and urban policy processes. ‘At its foundation,’ argue Resler and Hagolani-Albov (2021, 325), ‘food democracy is designed to enable a range of community-level processes of deliberation.’

Food choice (theme: participation). Liberal approaches to food democracy place a strong emphasis on food choice (n = 40) both as an expression of freedom and autonomy in the right to food (Riches 1999), and as a powerful tool to steer the food system. Food choice is interpreted through two main channels: food producers’ and providers’ choice of production and distribution practices (Elver 2016), and the choice of informed consumers to ‘vote’ in an open market for products and services which represent the agri-food system they would like to see – e.g. rights-based, local, fair, organic, safe, and more nutritious (Kneafsey et al. 2012). Changing values and consumer behaviors can create market opportunities for innovative and alternative value chains, and increase competitive demand for better practices from corporations like McDonald’s and Wal-Mart (Hamilton 2005). Ultimately, ‘decisions on value are made by consumers in a Food Democracy; this is the freedom of choice we should have in a democracy and in a capitalistic system’ (Hamilton 2005, 29).

Civic co-planning (theme: participation). Combining motivations from participatory and deliberative democracy, civic co-planning (n = 27) envisions citizens performing the ‘public work’ of food democracy (DeLind 2002, 219). Co-planning is framed collaboratively as a grassroots intermediation to local government, or critically as means to keep institutions responsive by reconfiguring power between states and citizens (Booth, Coveney, and Paturel 2018). Formats range from citizen-government collaboration in food policy councils (van de Griend et al. 2019) to participatory digital city planning (Dela Cruz, Thornton, and Haase 2020). Motivations stem from, for example, a sense of societal responsibility by participating in collective problem solving (Lang 2005) or a desire to address needs not met by institutions (Simona et al. 2021).

Knowledge democracy (theme: knowledge). Tied closely to deliberation is the dimension of knowledge democracy (n = 22), whereby a broad swath of expert and non-expert stakeholders (Adelle 2019), e.g. urban gardeners, spatial planners or parent organizations, exchange lived experiences (Baldy and Kruse 2019). By bringing in diverse understandings, identities, experiences, values and interests around food, actors shape collective knowledge as food citizens (Renting, Schermer, and Rossi 2012). As Carlson and Chappell (2015, 9) reflect, food democracy ‘creates opportunities for people to learn, expand and sharpen their preferences, while building knowledge of and empathy toward their fellow citizens.’ Mutual knowledge exchange is also seen as a prerequisite for legitimacy, given the ‘moral imperative to include subaltern forms of knowledge in decision-making’ (Adelle 2019, 215).

Rights protection (theme: role of the state). The liberal strand of the food democracy literature emphasizes rights to food information and transparency as both an intrinsic value and an instrument to facilitate improvements (n = 20). Hamilton (2004, 21) argues that ‘democracy thrives on information and our ability to make informed choices, a value grounded in the First Amendment of our Constitution,’ referring to the U.S. Constitution. Empirical examples across the texts include information through nutritional labeling (Bedore 2010), guidelines for healthy dietary choices (Atwell 2007) and transparent safety standards (Trexler 2011). Transparency is also viewed as a sustainability and social justice issue. All actors must have an opportunity to trace and review their food supply chain through equal access to timely and accurate information (Eakin et al. 2017).

Outlying dimensions

Outlying dimensions are those that appear relatively infrequently in the text corpus (less than 10 texts). They mostly present more radical or disruptive approaches to system change through food democracy. The cosmopolitan dimension (n = 7) addresses political spaces beyond nation-states with transnational participation of global food citizens holding complex identities (i.e. community member, global eater) (Szabady 2014, 635). The direct democracy dimension (n = 2) refers to attempts to overcome distance between consumers, producers and policymakers through, for example, direct farming in ‘back-to-the-land’ communities (Andretta and Guidi 2017, 257), or individuals self-realizing food tastes and experiences (Voß and Guggenheim 2019).

Even advocates of participatory and deliberative approaches raise concerns that these might serve only to placate, through co-optation, more radical demands in a post-political, post-democracy era of technocratic governance and corroded institutions (Moragues-Faus 2016; Logan 2020). Radical and prefigurative perspectives (n = 9) therefore criticize food democracy as inadequate unless integrated with an overhaul of capitalist structures and paid labor markets (Tilzey 2019).

Contestation in food democracy understandings

Based on the deductive analysis and categorization of each publication to one or more democracy model, Figure 4 (full list in Annex 1) shows the frequency of the most salient democracy models (number of texts, vertical graph) and the number of publications combining democracy models (horizontal graph). We can understand combinations as indicating synergistic understandings of food democracy (deliberative + participatory (n = 18), liberal + participatory (n = 15), and deliberative + egalitarian (n = 8)). Notably, liberal and deliberative democracy rarely occur together (n = 2). Hence, the disjuncture of the two strands of the food democracy literature found in the citation analysis translates into distinct conceptualizations at the level of democracy models.

Figure 4. Democracy model combinations in the literature.

Number of publications per category or combination of categories.

Source: Authors’ analysis of N = 114 publications.

Drawing on the empirical examples and descriptions aligned under democracy models in Table 3, we analyze how synergies and contestations between democracy understandings arise in each of the four thematic areas (participation, knowledge, rights realization and the role of the state).

Participation – of consumers or citizens? The liberal food democracy perspective argues that informed consumer food choice sets the lowest bar for participation compared to political voting (Hamilton 2005) or time-consuming direct participation (Eakin et al. 2017). Yet, market-based participation constitutes the most contested aspect of food democracy. Critics point to negative consequences: individualizing responsibility for systemic problems like climate change or non-communicable diseases (Hasson 2019); disproportionately empowering wealthy consumers (Lorenzini 2019); and exacerbating social privilege as a form of structural violence (Fernandez-Wulff 2019). Instead, advocates of deliberative food democracy emphasize collective citizen-centered interaction and dialogs, counteracting the perceived ‘commodification of human relationships’ (Levkoe 2006, 89). Participatory democracy co-occurs with both liberal and deliberative food democracy, often overlapping in empirical examples, e.g. consumer volunteers in food co-ops (Logan 2020) or citizens deliberating and co-planning urban food policy (Dela Cruz, Thornton, and Haase 2020).

Knowledge – transparency or exchange? Accessible and accurate information is commonly considered a precondition for food democracy. In the liberal conception, this pertains mostly to transparency around food and eating – production practices, origins, safety measures, nutritional value – to enable and empower food choice, and is provided by food producers, industry experts, public health institutions and scientists in the form of e.g. labels and dietary guidelines (Atwell 2007), with mandatory standards where needed to safeguard consumers’ rights. Yet, there are concerns that transparency often relies on one-way communication from sources in elite and technocratic institutions (Adelle 2019) and is subject to potential influence by ‘anti-health food forces’ (Lang and Heasman 2004, 280). Deliberative democracy scholars argue that mutual exchange co-produces knowledge to increase awareness of food issues and civic skills. This can be fostered through, for example, outreach by food policy councils (Levkoe 2006), communities of practice (Adelle et al. 2021) or fora on cultural integrity in food standards (Feghali et al. 2022). From this perspective, a pluralist knowledge base is also a tool to overcome the ‘myopia of identity-driven food choice’ (Szabady 2014, 635).

Rights realization – right to eat or right to act? Rights are tied to food democracy primarily in the human right to food and civic right to food choice and information as a ‘right to know’ in a liberal sense (Hamilton 2005, 34). But apart from human and civic rights language, there are political rights centered in egalitarian democracy such as the right and responsibility for citizens to participate and equal right to act and make decisions, with a further condition that these political rights are deliberately enabled in practice (Reina-Usuga, Gimenez, and Parra-López 2020). Elements of egalitarian democracy appear with deliberative approaches to address the potential tokenism and exclusionary practices in fora for public dialogue and decision-making (Zerbian and de Luis Romero 2021) and to expand power and representation of those who often ‘do not count’ in food governance spaces (Moragues-Faus 2016, 462). As Lorenzini (2019, 135) emphasizes ‘the more demanding the democratic ideal, the more inequality shapes participation.’

State’s role – minimal protector or collaborative partner? While participation in the political system is important in the liberal perspective, ‘in fact, sometimes which bacon we buy might have more influence on society,’ (Hamilton 2004, 21). The state should provide a protective framework for legal rights and accountability of legislative authority, but food consumption is primarily a private expression of personal values to be defended: ‘What could be more private than a decision about what foods to ingest and what foods to shun?’ (Pulle 2012, 298). Yet, in contrast to the ‘Americanization’ era of hands-off public policy, Lang (1999, 220) outlines the return of a robust and responsive state; here, the deliberative approach uses food-related debate as a tool to break down barriers between public and private life (Gómez-Benito and Lozano 2015). Through collaborative governance, states should enable public input to contribute to responsive ‘policy sincerity’ and present the best argument for democratic legitimacy of politicians and governments (Galperin 2018, 347).

Discussion

In this section we review the findings to discuss the essential elements of food democracy and their relation to the two dominant traditions of democracy which appeared in the. We address how these variations reflect diverging epistemological positions and strategies of democratic change, with wider implications for further research, policy and agri-food system interventions.

Divergent key dimensions with shared concerns of food democracy

Our close inspection revealed a broad range of over 20 food democracy dimensions addressed in the text corpus. Looking beyond the demonstrable consensus on strengthened democratic participation, which in one form or another was contained as an intrinsic value in every analyzed text, the most common dimensions in the text corpus were aligned with distinct democracy traditions: food choice and rights protection with liberal democracy, and deliberation, knowledge democracy, and, with a participatory emphasis, civic co-planning with deliberative democracy.

Hence, the most salient food democracy dimensions form two distinct groups that draw on two different schools of thought with largely separate clusters of research influence: the deliberative democracy approach often referring back to the original conception of food democracy in British public policy studies in the early 1990s in combination with recent deliberative-participatory empirical criteria, and the liberal democracy approach originating in US-American legal studies in the early 2000s. Shared concerns become visible in the agri-food system problematizations, which focus on a disengaged state, corporate control, industrialization, globalization and injustice, thereby generally pointing toward macro-trends that move control over food away from individuals and communities. In contrast, food democracy has been developed as an essentially local counter-concept. More than half of the papers analyzed conceptualize food democracy at the local level (mostly local dialogue, relationships and proximity to food), echoing aspects of the ‘local trap’ critique (Born and Purcell 2006), while national, global and multiple levels of democracy are less frequently addressed.

Divergent democratic understandings and strategies for change

Apart from shared problematizations and scale, our analysis identified contestation around four key democratic themes: participation, concepts of knowledge, scope and materialization of relevant rights, and the role of the state. Liberal concepts of food democracy see a more limited role of the state: ensuring transparency and a level playing field to enable the ‘right to know’ of consumers, producers and entrepreneurs in contestable markets that deliver on emerging preferences for sustainable and ethical food. In contrast, deliberative concepts of food democracy advocate an active and responsive state which facilitates broad participation in deliberative and collaborative fora where citizens do not merely claim individual rights to food or information, but have their right to act politically and practically enabled to influence policy through collective agency, values and a well-connected community.

The two models are also based on different epistemological foundations. Liberal food democracy centers on transparency, which in turn requires sound methodologies to establish measurements on which standards, labels and consumer information can build in a legally codifiable way. The implicit concept of knowledge is closely related to positivist epistemologies. In contrast, deliberative food democracy emphasizes joint public reasoning and co-creation of knowledge, thereby referring to concepts of embedded knowledge and interpretivist or critical epistemologies.

Based on the differing concepts of participation, knowledge, rights and the state, the two models lead to different strategies of democratic change. In the liberal food democracy model, change occurs through the choices of individual consumers and entrepreneurs which enable new business models and practices. Change is therefore driven by changing preferences. Since information, transparency and contestable markets are needed to enable choice, new preference dimensions (e.g. on climate impact and animal welfare) require an extension of transparency rules and methodologies. Once reliable measures and methods have been developed, the legal framework must be reformed to enforce transparency through requirements on labeling and consumer information that enable consumers to act on their preferences for sustainable, regional, ethical, etc. food. Policy change therefore occurs incrementally by building majorities among legislators for regulatory reforms and public investment in research and development. The associated politics is linked to influencing incumbents in established institutions in a competitive policy process, with a focus on lobbying and electoral politics.

In the deliberative food democracy approach, democratic change occurs through joint reasoning and deliberation which impacts values, preferences, behaviors and practices and stimulates community building. Often, deliberative and participatory strategies are combined, e.g. through support for food policy networks and meaningful forms of state-citizen collaboration. Deliberative change strategies are also typically incremental. They focus on the creation of deliberative fora, coalition building and the encouragement of social activism. The politics of deliberative food democracy is generally consensus-oriented, anti-corporate and anti-establishment, and focuses on building support for new deliberative institutions and mini-publics, e.g. food councils or deliberative citizen assemblies. Relatively low levels of open conflict and abstaining from fundamental challenges to abandon core institutions are mutually constitutive. Instead, the deliberative food democracy strategy aims at transforming the worldviews and preferences of actors within institutions, through either direct involvement or indirectly by influencing their environment.

Politics of conceptualizing food democracy and wider implications

Looking toward continued development and critical reflection on food democracy in policy and interventions, we see a political aspect inherent in scholarly conceptualization; advancing certain food democracy perspectives could benefit particular lines of research, policies and initiatives, and can potentially obscure or ignore other perspectives given the current silos in schools of thought and research clusters. This is reflected in approaches to conceptualization which actively filter out or reject certain underlying democracy norms, for example criticizing food democracy as political consumerism. The process of selecting a food democracy concept carries the potential for significant trade-offs in practice. What would be the implications then, of embracing a liberal food democracy approach? In essence, a liberal food democracy agenda would prioritize consumer control and freedom of choice, including: policies for increased industry investment for research, development and marketing of sustainable forms of production as consumer preferences change (farm-to-table, climate-neutral, plant-based), legislation to mandate new transparency standards and governance bodies (i.e. requiring scientific criteria for ‘health’ claims in food labels and adding place of origin to meat packaging), and resources toward civil society campaigns on consumer rights, awareness and food literacy education. As a knock-on effect, there are clear views that a liberal food democracy approach could theoretically weaken attempts at realizing deliberative democracy in the long run as governments may struggle to support both logics, for example, putting policies built on individual food choice and responsibility ahead of ‘lengthy, complicated open-ended democratic processes’ (Gumbert 2019, 98).

In contrast, adopting a deliberative conceptualization of food democracy would prioritize policies for mass awareness, acceptance and institutionalization of inclusive citizen-based dialog and participatory planning and budgeting, including vertical linkages to deliberative legislation (i.e. integrating food policy councils, town hall meetings, citizen juries and community-building resources in food strategy and public planning frameworks). Successful deliberative food democracy strategies could, inter alia, delegitimize other policies and practices which are not influenced at least in part through pluralist expert and non-expert knowledge, and inclusive, deliberative participatory processes. At the minimum, certain conditions could be set (enabled equal right to participate, an element of public deliberation) which would delineate what could be called democratic or legitimate decision-making in the agri-food space.

Apart from the two predominant food democracy variations, outlying dimensions of the concept speak to the ideas currently at the margins of mainstream food democracy; these include food autonomy in direct democratic systems, responsibility for transnational participation through global food citizenship, and radical or prefigurative approaches which aim to reconfigure current capitalist social-property relations (Tilzey 2019) and corroded institutions of ‘post-democracy’ (Logan 2021). Taken together, these voices serve as an indicator of the dynamism, experimentation and critical pressure to test and expand the conceptual repertoire of what is democratic about the food democracy concept beyond dominant incremental avenues for social and democratic agri-food systems transformation.

Conclusion

‘Food democracy’ was introduced as a normative-analytical concept based on the claim that the development of food systems should not be understood as a purely economic matter but as a political question involving issues of power and control. Unavoidably, applications of the democracy concept to food and food systems are shaped by different traditions of democratic thinking. To identify the most salient concepts of democracy in the academic literature on food democracy, the systematic literature review presented in this paper applied a multi-dimensional democracy framework to map the development of the concept in this body of works.

Identifying the most common dimensions of food democracy (deliberation, knowledge democracy, food choice, rights protection, civic co-planning) and the patterns of their co-occurrence confirmed the parallel evolution of a liberal and a deliberative conceptualization of food democracy (Behringer and Feindt 2019). The analysis further showed that the two conceptualizations, reflecting different origins and research traditions, imply divergent scientific approaches and political strategies. Therefore, besides serving as a theoretically guided literature review, the findings provide a basis to recognize and critically reflect upon values and methods of democratic change, e.g. by specifying conditions, qualifiers or baselines of variegated food democracy dimensions in order to delineate diverging concepts of the quality of food democracy or to distinguish implications of food democracies in policy interventions.

The analysis was confined to research published in English, which may explain the dearth of publications from non-Western institutions. However, further reflection is needed into whether food democracy has inherent conceptual features that could limit its application to certain types of polities or cultures, or how the concept can and should be adapted to a broader range of contexts. Future research should therefore extend the analysis to other languages. Furthermore, a comparative analysis of the democracy models embodied in related concepts such as food security, food justice and food sovereignty would be of interest to establish overlaps and distinctions.

Overall, by reconstructing the problem descriptions, scales and democracy models deployed, this study contributes to a more reflexive understanding of the key concepts in the academic debate on food democracy. It can therefore also contribute to food democracy as a reflexive practice that aims to improve the conditions under which societies and communities govern and develop their food systems from local to global scale (Feindt and Weiland 2018). The findings have also helped to identify key areas for future research. These include 1) a multi-scalar framework to facilitate integration of food democracy research across scales, 2) a systematic integration of the different approaches to food democracy and 3) research into how local efforts are institutionalized or rebuffed in national and international policy agendas. In any case, the critical intention that guided the development of the concept of food democracy also requires a continued critical inquiry into developments that move food systems toward and away from Lang’s vision of ‘greater access and collective benefit’ for all.

Acknowledgments

Julia Behringer’s research was supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), ref. no. 57299294, and the Graduate Program of the Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems (IRI THESys) at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2023.2191859

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Julia Behringer

Julia Behringer Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, is a Doctoral Candidate in the Agricultural and Food Policy Group. Julia holds an M.A. in Environment and Development Studies from King’s College London and previously worked at the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International in the UK and Switzerland. She is a recipient of the German Chancellor’s Fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and a doctoral scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service. Her primary research interests include citizen participation, democracy theory, climate, environmental and agricultural transitions and sustainable diets. She is Co-Founder of the Food & Democracy Doctoral Research Cluster and Associate Member of FoodBerlin.

Peter H. Feindt

Peter H. Feindt Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, is Professor of Agricultural and Food Policy. He previously held senior positions at the University of Hamburg, Cardiff University and Wageningen University. His research interests include agricultural and food policy, environmental policy, sustainability transitions, resilience of farming systems, public participation and conflict management, policy discourse and narratives. Peter is chair of the Scientific Advisory Council for Biodiversity and Genetic Resources at the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture and member of the Scientific Advisory Council for Agricultural and Food Policy at the same ministry. He is member of the board of the German Agricultural Research Alliance (DAFA), honorary editor of the Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning and member of the German Bioeconomy Council.